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Doing some planning for the future

Ok bored at work at have sketched up a 8' long fish rack for my future basement - yes I don't even have the house yet and I'm planning the fish wall.

Current thoughts are a 175 or 155 bowfront as main show tank up stairs while I had this rack in my man cave in the basement.

8' Long, by 2' deep and approx 6' tall. I would have approx 96" per shelf for tanks, and depending on weight I don't know if I'd need a center brace, just have 4 good posts with 8' long 2x4's doubled up as the shelves (with plywood though)

What would be best way to filter and heat all these, I planned on 6 4' long shop lights, and prob could do an aquaclear for each, but then add a sponge to supplement it? Would that be enough?

Just working on a budget and came up with this - Total around $1200 not counting lumber for stand, plants, and actually stocking the tanks. Plus need the powerheads for hillstream tank. But I'm sure I could find better prices, these were all just what I found quick

Keep in mind tanks have different heights to them, so having a mix on the same shelf of the rack will vary the amount of working space you'll have between the top of the tank and shelf above it. A friend of mine built a rack only to find out later that he had not left enough free above the tank to easily clean and maintain the tank.

With a lot of tanks you might find it cheaper to heat the room instead of each tank individually. The cost of buying all those heaters and then paying the electric bill to run them will add up. It took a while to realize this, now only have heaters in a few tanks, the rest stay at room temperature.

For filtration, I keep canisters on the 2 tanks, for the rest sponge filters are able to do the job. Again it was a matter of cost, buying hobs for all those tanks and then the cost of running them adds up. All my 2.5, 5, 10 and 20g tanks have sponge filters I do frequent water changes. Sponges are able to do a great job at biological filtration. Powerheads can be connected to sponge filters as well if you want more water movement. One large air pump can run all the sponge filters.

For saving money on glass lids, can always make your own.

If you can find others in your area that may have a fishroom and check it out. I've been to a few fishrooms and everyone has their own way of setting up their fish tanks and racks. Great way to learn what has worked for others, and what they wished they had done instead.

The reason I was think multiple heaters was b/c I'd like the rack to be viewable without having to go into a separate room (just a thought really).

What sort of fish room do you have set up?

I would plan to have 6-8" of clearance between top of tank and edge of wood. The tanks listed are all 12" tall too :)

Oh didn't realize the 30g breeders were 12" in height. My living room doubles as the fishroom. Moving at the end of the year, then I'll figure out a more permanent fishroom. At the moment I don't have a lot of space so under each of the larger tanks I put in shelves to hold smaller tanks. Also have a rack to hold all the small 2.5, 5, and 10g tanks. The mts (multiple tank syndrome) kicked in and I bought a few too many tanks. A local person was moving and sold all his tanks, I was able to buy around 25 small tanks from him for a price I couldn't pass up. For clearance I have 10" above the 5g and 10g's. Have a cheap strip work light hanging above the those small tanks. The 2.5g's are on a separate rack, room light is good enough for them. Keeping the room at usually 72 to 78f. The discus tanks get heaters.